Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Frank Jump’s 'Fading Ads of New York City' preserves those signs found on walls of old NYC

Book records his life's work of finding ads for elixirs, pain remedies and pool halls of yesteryear

One of the ads from Frank Jump’s ‘Fading Ads of New York City,’ this one for a pain remedy of yesteryear.

Throughout the city, Frank Jump sees what others don’t. He sees ghost signs — those ads painted on the sides of buildings that retreat from the eye as time passes — and they leap out at him.
Then he reaches for his camera.
“Fading Ads of New York City” is a collection drawn from thousands of pics taken throughout the five boroughs. It began on a long ago day when Jump went to Harlem with a friend. At Frederick Douglass Blvd. and 147th Street, he noticed the giant wall mural boasting of the powers of an elixir, Omega Oil.
“My jaw dropped,” says Jump. “I climbed up on scaffolding and got the picture before the police told me to get down.”
So began a life’s work.
At first, Jump shot in chrome. His slide show of the tell-tale signs of a New York gone by numbers upward of 5,000. Since switching to digital, his collection of sightings has swelled to tens of thousands taken all over the world.
“Whenever we travel, we get a room in the seediest part of town,” says Jump. “Usually you find these ads in a part of town where they haven’t done any renovations yet.”

1 comment:

Geoff Churchman
said...

I remember seeing one message painted quite large on a wall in a vacant lot in downtown Manhattan in November 1980 saying "the communists are the good guys" - it made an impression, not that I agreed with it.